How one-sided was Canmore boxer Craig Wilson’s bout at the K.O. for Cancer Round 3 Fundraiser?
He drilled his opponent’s chin so many times he lost count.
“I went right to the plan and followed it,” Wilson said.
Wilson, 30, was the lone Bow Valley fighter in the 2012 K.O. for Cancer fundraiser on Saturday (Aug. 25) outdoors at Banff Community High School. The event raised more than $5,000 for cancer research and was the first outdoor fight of its kind in Banff.
Fighters from Calgary, Red Deer and Edmonton arrived to fight, however, Wilson had the hometown crowd behind him. After studying his opponent for the first half of the first round, he stunned him with a solid hook, shocked him with an uppercut, then demolished him on the ropes.
While his opponent, Calgary’s Hani Hashim, held a reach advantage, it didn’t take long for Wilson to exploit the out-of-towner’s shoddy defence.
“He was lazy on the guard,” Wilson said.
In the second round, Wilson kept his opponent on the ropes, mitigating his reach advantage and pounding away with big right hooks to the head. After two minutes in the second, the ref had seen enough and stopped the fight.
Despite the dominant performance, Wilson said he never thought he had the fight in the bag.
“You take it round by round. It only takes one punch, then you lose,” Wilson said.
Wilson has three fights under his belt. On each occasion, his opponent failed to escape the second round.
“He’s had three fights and three stoppages,” said coach Nick Martin.
Wilson trained in Australia as a boxer before coming to Canmore to fight. This was his second K.O. for Cancer event and he said he prefers the outdoor venue. That being said, he’s eyeing several tournaments at the end of the year and wants to see how far boxing will take him.
As for his next appearance in the ring, he’s not picky.
“I’ll fight anybody,” he joked.
As for the fundraising aspect, Martin, who runs Canmore Fight Club, said he’s happy with the evening.
“I’m really happy. It was a good turnout and the fights were excellent. It was our strongest card,” Martin said. “We’re going to keep growing this. Banff and boxing works. We’ve now got a great venue. Since day one, I wanted to do boxing outside in the mountains.”
The Town of Canmore and Canadian Rockies Public Schools partnered with the fundraiser, which meant essentially no overhead for the event, allowing more money to flow to cancer research.
“It’s been a success,” Martin said.
The last two events were in Canmore, however, the Banff Avenue venue this year attracted more spectators – even though some simply skipped the ticket-purchasing and watched from the fence on the street.
